We must continue King’s work to overcome poverty, oppression

(Editor’s note: As our nation celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 15, The Criterion offers this essay from Tim Hickle, a student at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis. Hickle won first place in the 2006 Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Statewide Essay Contest. There were 3,600 entries.)

By Tim Hickle

Thanks to Dr. King, numerous barriers were abolished so that our “world-house” could function peacefully. He led many non-violent rallies to obliterate racism. What many do not realize, however, is that in the last year of his life Dr. King attempted to obliterate poverty and oppression, the barriers that are most prominent in and lethal to our world-house today.

Our world-house consists of three stories. On the bottom rests the luxurious suites of the upper class. After a short elevator ride, one will find the comfortable apartments of the middle class. After a long climb up a steep staircase, however, one will find a closet filled with the impoverished and oppressed of today’s society.

As one enters this dismal closet of the dejected, he sees the faces of thousands of people with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The hardest part, however, is knowing that these people have no exit, just an entrance through which more will enter.

Poverty currently creates the largest division in our world-house and the precise thing that King was trying to fight in his final days. In his last hours, many supporters of Dr. King began to stray. Many people who supported his anti-racism protests discouraged his new “Poor People’s Campaign.” Nothing, however, could sway him from his objective.

Dr. King noticed poverty destroying our world-house and decided to end it. He said, “The dispossessed of this nation—the poor, both white and Negro—live in a cruelly unjust society. …Society is refusing to take [the] means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty.”

To help lift the load of the impoverished, I volunteer at the Lord’s Pantry, an Indianapolis-based organization that helps feed the poor, and encourage others to do the same. I also have founded a charity, the CF Fighters, partnering with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to fight a deadly genetic disease. As I gaze into this closet, I know that I myself was nearly there. Being a victim of a traumatic brain injury nearly spun my life off course. Luckily, thanks to courage, resources, and the strength of my friends and family, it did not.

While I may be comfortable in my apartment on the second floor, I still see the closet every day. Something needs to be done now. This was the same attitude that led Dr. King to form his “Poor People’s Campaign.” Now, we need to complete the daunting task that he was unable to finish. We need to help overcome poverty and oppression, for these are true obstacles to our world-house. It is on our watch, America. It is time to clean out the closet. †